


Seed

by Haecceity



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Domestic Violence, F/M, Family Drama, based in Greek tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haecceity/pseuds/Haecceity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Panis took Jennsen from Tarralyn</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pristineungift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/gifts).



> Prompt: "There is war in women too." - Blood Wedding, Jennsen -from pristineungift

The day Alia Rahl turned her back on the People’s Palace, was also the day D’Hara entered open warfare with their neighbors. She packed her case with a few clothes and some food, stole a dress less likely to catch attention than her red velvet, and started putting one foot in front of the other with her husband’s palace directly behind her. She traveled away from the land of her older brothers and her father- and his father and his father and his father- and went farther east. 

On hearing the news, Panis Rahl immediately declared that his Queen, who had been in fragile health since his heir’s birth, had taken ill and died suddenly. Alia’s father’s heralds were sent out to call on those allies not already coming to his defense to help him avenge his only daughter.

No one who knew Alia Rahl saw her again.

***

Tarralyn Zorander was naive and foolish when Panis found her but she was not stupid. Wandering heartbroken through the charred remains of Brennidon, a suspicion rooted itself in her heart. She walked east until she grew too weary to continue, slept beside the road, and then trekked eastward again.

One day an eternity later she collapsed to her knees in the middle of the road. The farmer who found her could only make out the words, “My son, my Richard, my baby.”

Her shepherd found her again, with words of love and worry. In spite of the suspicion spreading its cold tendrils through her gut, Tarralyn allowed him back into her heart and her bed. She was still foolish but not so naive. They fought constantly. The shepherd called Tarralyn ungrateful, needy, grasping, and lazy. Tarralyn screamed back that that he had known she was a wizard’s daughter and if he wanted a housekeeper, he would need to pay for one.

The day Tarralyn Zorander left Panis Rahl was not the day the fighting first advanced to hitting. It was not the day she looked at her reflection while she was bathing and didn’t recognize her face. Tarralyn left the day she realized she was pregnant again.

Panis Rahl couldn’t leave Tarralyn alone. He needed to know if she was going to give birth to the child of prophecy, the child he needed. So he tracked her down.

Unwrapping the infant to expose her, hearing his daughter’s wails, Panis had a change of heart. He would make sure there was one woman who would never run away from him.

He met Tarralyn’s eyes as he left with little Jennsen. Even through dense trees, he could hear the screams for a long time

***

Jennsen hummed to herself as she skipped down the path through the orchard. The Order of Ulrich was conducting one of their secret meetings she wasn’t allowed to attend so she was free to spend the day pretending to be the Seeker. She’d put away the nice white dress Papa liked her to wear and grabbed the brown shirt and trousers she wore when she was doing work that might get her dirty. She grabbed a fallen branch and used it to battle an imaginary Shadrin, deeper and deeper into the blooming apple trees.

As she gave her sword a flourish, Jennsen noticed something moving by the road. Knowing she was supposed to leave talking to strangers to the Doorman, Jennsen hesitated. She scrunched her forehead in thought before climbing a tree to get a better view. A woman in a dirty brown shawl and dress was slowly trudging down the road, away from the setting sun. Jennsen had seen women like her before. Sometimes the women from the nearby village would leave food or do chores for the monastery. She didn’t recognize this woman but Jennsen didn’t feel like she had any reason to be afraid so she hopped down and picked her sword back up.

The woman looked so tired. Jennsen decided that a true Seeker would help a tired woman who crossed his path no matter how much washing up he had to do as punishment. “Hello!” she called. “Do you need help?”

Looking up, the woman’s eyes widened as she saw Jennsen. “Yes.”

“If you’re looking for the monastery, it’s just around that bend. They’ll feed you if you help with the chores.” Jennsen said, tossing the stick away.

Raising an eyebrow at Jennsen’s grubby hands, the woman trusted Jennsen with one of her packs. “You live in the village?”

“I stay in the monastery.” Jennsen said, trying not to let the woman see how much she struggled with the pack. “But only until my brother comes to get me. Then we’ll go away and have lots of adventures.”

“Who’s your brother, child?” she asked Jennsen.

“Richard.” Jennsen stopped when the woman gasped. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, no.” She resumed lugging her pack up the road. “What’s your name?”

“Jennsen,” Jennsen said cheerfully. She could hear the monks ringing that dinner was going to be ready soon. Already thinking about potatoes and cheese, Jennsen didn’t notice that the other woman didn’t give her name.

The drama came after dinner when Jennsen’s papa noticed the woman sitting at the poor table. He shouted that she had no business being there, his face turning the same shade of red that it had when Jennsen had accidentally left a frog on his bed.

“How dare you?” she shouted back. “You take my daughter and leave me to face your son’s troops alone and I can’t even have a meal in the same room with her?”

Jennsen’s blue eyes widened. “He said my mother was dead,” she whispered.

“That’s what he told us too,” Jennsen’s seatmate said. “I’m sure he has a good explanation.” He ushered her to the library as the shouts continued to ring off the stone walls.

As he tucked her into bed that night her papa murmured in her ear, “She’ll try to find you again. Don’t speak to her. Don’t think about her.”

“But-”

“No buts.” Her papa squeezed her shoulder too hard. “You’re mine. Promise.”

“I promise.”

Jennsen’s promise lasted three weeks. Her father had left on one of his trips to find a clue to her brother’s puzzle. She saw the woman standing in the orchard and nearly went around. But she was curious.

It started with the odd glimpse here and there that Jennsen did nothing to avoid. Her mother had been driven off monastery grounds but she traveled the road between the gates and the village at the same time every day. Jennsen knew her mother was lulling her on purpose. But she was curious.

Jennsen was the first to speak. Years later she was never quite sure what she mumbled at her mother. She was no coward to wait for her mother to draw her out into breaking her promise. Jennsen knew what she was breaking. Jennsen knew her father would be furious. But she was curious and her papa was away.

When he came back, Jennsen knew three humorous anecdotes about her grandpa Zedd, her mother’s favorite color, and what her mother’s thirteenth birthday had been like. And that her mother missed Richard as much as her father did.

It was inevitable. Jennsen was not a slow child but she was only twelve and her father was far more skilled at subterfuge. She was almost relieved when her father confronted her mother. She hadn’t really believed her parents would see how much she loved them and decide to get back together. But she had never guessed the outcome she witnessed.

As she ran from the monastery, Jennsen wondered what she could have done differently. She paused by a stream to try to scrub the blood from her hands, whimpering. She swore she wouldn’t rest until she had avenged her father.

***

Lord Rahl gripped Jennsen’s shoulder firmly. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

Jennsen glared through her eye that wasn’t swollen. “You found me.”

“I apologize for Denna’s… roughness. We had reason to believe you might be resistant.” Darken touched his lips thoughtfully. “We want the same thing…”

“Jennsen,” Denna supplied.

Tilting her head, Jennsen looked around the room. It was a little more comfortable than she would have expected for a torture dungeon. She was tied to a bed that was the softest she had been on in her three years of running and hiding. The walls were painted an inoffensive cream color and she could see a slice of blue sky through a window. Denna was standing beside the dark shadow of a doorway and under a white lintel. Lord Rahl was crouched over her, looking concerned and serious. “Do we?”

“Panis Rahl is dead. He was my father too.” Darken said quietly. “He never challenged me for the throne. He never even sent a threatening note or founded a conspiracy to assassinate me. I know because I have investigated every conspiracy most thoroughly. So what was he doing?”

“How should I know?” Jennsen said, clenching her jaw. She quickly released the expression as the pounding in her head redoubled.

“Your mother is Tarralyn Zorander, daughter of First Wizard Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander. I imagine in your position, you would like very much to make her life a misery. Yes, I thought that might be your reaction. Your enemy is my enemy. You are uniquely equipped to defeat her and I know how.” Lord Rahl said gently. “You are immune to magic, yes?”

“Yes,” Jennsen said, her chest tight with emotions she didn’t dare let escape.

“Will you attack me if I let you up?” Lord Rahl asked.

Jennsen shook her head and Denna untied her legs first. Rubbing her wrists to get the circulation back in her fingers. “What do you want from me?”

“A simple exchange of services. I help you get revenge on your mother, you help me. Most vaults where anything worth stealing is kept are protected by extensive spells or illusions.” Lord Rahl said gently. “You could walk through them.”

“You want me to steal?” Jennsen asked, frowning.

“No. I want my opponents to know I have someone who could steal from them.” He corrected. “Does that sound like a fair trade?”

“How will I know if you’re actually helping me?” Jennsen asked.

“An excellent question.” Lord Rahl said approvingly. “I will give you updates every-”

“You could fake them.”

“What would satisfy you?” Lord Rahl said, anger showing under his calm.

“What do you have against my mother that would make you want to get rid of her? You said her father was a First Wizard. How do I know you won’t want her as a hostage against her father?”

“Well, I would like to do that but your mother escaped me with something very precious before her father disappeared. I would like a chance to speak with her about that.” Rahl smiled tightly.

“My brother,” Jennsen said, lifting her chin. “He’s going to save the world.”

“He lives,” Rahl’s eyes widened. “I have no objections to the world being saved but I have strenuously negative feelings about the prophecy that says he will kill me.”

“Tarralyn doesn’t have him.” Jennsen said, her tone bitter. “Father didn’t either.”

“So Zeddicus hasn’t merely been hiding from me.” Rahl said thoughtfully. “My offer stands.”

“But-”

“If our brother resurfaces, we will renegotiate.” Rahl said. “I want eyes on your mother because Zeddicus will seek her out and Zeddicus will be close to the Seeker. His ego won’t permit anything else.”

Jennsen squeezed her eyes shut, her mind filling with stories her father had told her of Darken Rahl’s evil. Her father had been supremely confident that her Brother the Seeker would do for Rahl. He’d been preparing for an after when her mother stuck a knife in his throat. She let out a deep breath and looked Rahl in the eye. “I accept.”

***

The moment Jennsen heard the rumor that her Brother the Seeker had returned, Jennsen left the castle and began walking west. Her immunity to magic was an asset with downsides. Rahl couldn’t bring her with him on all his jumps and that was likely what saved her life.

Before she hadn’t noticed how lonely it was to be on the road by herself. She had been too busy trying to run from the memories. Now, she had learned how to separate her mind from her body. Her body was walking west on a road while her mind wandered back over regrets. Her regret over not turning away from her mother while it still mattered. Her regret for never being able to be what Rahl needed. Her regret over leaving him to face his fear without her.

But it wasn’t as if he would have let her face his fear with him. He would never trust her. The way she would never trust anyone the way she had trusted before her father’s murder. She had stayed even though she was almost certain Rahl was hiding her mother from her. Maybe this was the Creator’s way of telling her it was time to follow through on her promise.

***

“I’m your sister,” Jennsen said brightly. “And you must be my grandfather.”

“You must have me confused with someone else.” First Wizard Zorander was much taller than she had imagined.

“No.” Jennsen shook her head. “You look like our mother,” she told Richard.

“Tarralyn?” 

Jennsen hid a shudder at the awful hope in her grandfather’s voice. “Yes.”

“You knew?” Richard turned to the Confessor. “You too?” The look of betrayal on his face hurt Jennsen’s heart. “Where is she?”

Immediately, the warm feelings that had begun to put up tentative shoots chilled around her heart. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. I was hoping you might know.”

“You’re my grandfather and you never told me.” Richard said angrily.

Jennsen retreated to watch the argument. Richard reminded her of the brother she’d left and the father she betrayed. Sitting on the ground, she didn’t follow them when Richard stormed off and their grandfather followed him.

“Not the family reunion you were hoping for?” The confessor asked, holding her green skirts as she sat beside Jennsen. 

“Not really,” Jennsen shook her head ruefully.

“How did you find us?” The Confessor asked, iron under her words.

“Rumor. Everyone talks about the Seeker. Where he’s been, what he’s doing, where he might be going next.” Jennsen said. “I’ve been chasing those stories for months.”

“What happened between you and your mother?” the Confessor asked.

“We had a fight. I ran off. I haven’t seen her since.” 

“You must really want to see her again.” the Confessor said quietly.

“Yes. I do.” Jennsen said.

“We can’t bring you with us.” the Confessor said gently.

“Why not?” Jennsen hadn’t thought otherwise but she wanted to make someone say it.

“We need to kill Rahl. He can’t be distracted. By anything.” 

“You love him.”

“I- Yes.”

“But you’re a Confessor.”

“I know.” she smiled sadly.

Feeling vaguely guilty, Jennsen wiped her hands on her brown trousers and stood. “Say goodbye to my brother and grandfather for me.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“I’ll find you when you’ve won.” Jennsen pasted on a smile.

***

There was one event Jennsen heard about that she knew her mother wouldn’t be able to stay away from. She allowed her grandfather to buy her a dress for the wedding. It was a light purple and flowed more than any of the dresses she’d worn when she was working for Lord Rahl. She loved the way it felt as it swished around her legs.

Jennsen held perfectly still as her mother walked up to Richard and introduced herself. She stayed calm while her mother told him how she’d thought of him every day and how much she loved him. She hoped her grimace looked enough like a smile when her mother noticed her.

“Oh, Jennsen! I looked everywhere for you.” Tarralyn Zorander stroked Jennsen’s hair as she embraced her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

The knife seemed to almost appear in Jennsen’s hand on its own. She plunged the knife into her mother’s chest. “That’s for my father,” she whispered in Tarralyn’s ear, blood warming her hand.

“What did you do?” Richard asked, in horror.

Jennsen didn’t say anything. She pulled the knife out and wiped it on Tarralyn’s sleeve.

“What did you do?” Richard shouted.

Jennsen turned away from him and let the guard take her into custody.


End file.
